


You Might Not Know

by paradox_n_bedrock



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Familiars, Gen, Zelda Spellman is Bad at Feelings, Zelda Spellman's Wall of Shoes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24061879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paradox_n_bedrock/pseuds/paradox_n_bedrock
Summary: The story of one curse from Zelda Spellman's wall of shoes. Sister Jackson was hardly the first time one Spellman sister had taken revenge on the other's behalf.--For Pathos: Zelda & Hilda & OC from Jyou-no-Sonoko19’s CAOS prompt generator.
Relationships: Hilda Spellman & Zelda Spellman
Comments: 15
Kudos: 34





	You Might Not Know

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jyou_no_Sonoko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jyou_no_Sonoko/gifts).



> Title inspired by "You Mean The World To Me" by Freya Ridings. I had one day to write this, and it was my first time doing a randomized prompt, but I think I lucked out.

Something was awry. Zelda knew it the moment she stepped into the manor. There was no humming, no music, no clinking of pans, or distant chatter of Hilda talking to her plants. Only a yawning silence.

She wandered to the kitchen, grabbing a cookie from the jar on the counter, sniffing to make sure they weren’t almond, and then the parlor, where Hilda could often be found curled up with an utterly trivial novel when the house was quiet, but there was no sign of her, and though she was decidedly _not_ concerned, she made her way out to the greenhouse, before she would head upstairs. It was there that she heard something. Not quite a whimper, but close enough to count.

“Hilda?” she called.

There was a scramble and then silence again. She walked deeper between the rows of plants, past rosemary and borage, past the section growing foxglove and nightshade, heels clicking on the concrete floor. Suddenly, her sister answered, sounding transparently distressed “Ah, Zelds! I’ll be in just a mo’. There’re leftovers in the fridge, why don’t you go make a plate?”

She came to the end of the row, and there was Hilda, hunched over on the floor, with her familiars crawling about frantically like the nuisances they were, circling over her legs. “What on earth is going on? Did all your calendula die again?” And then she saw the trembling hands, carefully cradling something minuscule. 

“Oh, no, it’s growing like, well, a weed, though the yarrow’s not looking as healthy,” she laughed, sticky and wet. 

“Hildy?” Zelda questioned, softer. Hilda looked up at her, finally, eyes swollen and red. “What’s happened?”

She opened her hands, revealing one single spider, limp and twitching lethargically on her palm. 

“Sister Abernathy, she asked me to tea. I thought, maybe, she was being friendly, but she just wanted help with a brew. And when the bloody cow didn’t like my answer… I would have helped her, if what she was trying wasn’t utter nonsense,” she scoffed, a little hurt sound, shaking her head, and strands of hair stuck to her damp cheeks. Zelda wanted to brush it back, wanted to get on the floor with her sister and hold her as she cried, but her knees felt locked at the thought. “I can’t figure it out. He’s only one of the whole, but, Zelds, if he dies, it’s like cutting off pieces,” she replied, her voice growing high-pitched and panicked.

Zelda breathed, rage building behind her eyes. She wasn’t thinking about Vinegar Tom, not letting through the slightest sliver of how some piece of herself was missing. “Come on,” she said, anger making it sharp. “We’re going to take care of this.” She held out a hand stiffly for Hilda, or this fragment of her familiar, she honestly didn’t know.

“You’re going to fix him?” she asked, sadder than she had heard her since her Harrowing. 

“No, you are. You can do this, sister, you just need to calm down. You’ve always been a- just as good of a healer as I. But I shall help.” Hilda looked relieved, astonished, from a place deeper than what was concern for her spiders, and as tears trickled down her face in a new flood, Zelda realized perhaps Hilda had been taking refuge in the greenhouse as much to hide from Zelda’s reaction as for access to her plants. She looked away, tamping down the shame that threatened to make her snatch her hand back.

In that moment, she resolved that Sister Abernathy wouldn’t be bothering them again.

Zelda rapped on the office door. She was expected, not officially, but the look on Sister Abernathy’s face at Black Mass had told her her intentions were well-telegraphed and that suited her just fine.

“Enter.” She did, swinging the door open with force. The tall blonde was sitting behind her desk, looking serene in her navy suit. The very example of a proper witch. She’d admired her, once, that ruthlessness barely hidden under a placid facade.

“Lydia.”

“Sister Spellman. What can I do for you on this fine day?” Her smile was wide now, sharklike and predatory and Zelda marveled that her sister had been desperate enough for company to fall for some sweet act. 

“I don’t think there’s a single thing you could do for me, that would dissuade me from what’s going to happen,” Zelda said, closing the door behind her.

“Do you think I’m not prepared for retribution? Your sister’s gift for potions might be exaggerated, but she is sneaky. You, on the other hand, have never been subtle, striding in here as though you’re going to take me on face-to-face, in the walls of the Academy? Very bold,” she drawled. 

“I think you weren’t prepared two days ago when I laid the curse, and, oh dear, it looks like your protections haven’t been strong enough to keep it out.” Zelda noted with satisfaction that her skin was pink from scratching all along the collar of her shirt. Her wrists, peeking out from her crisp sleeves, as well. “You always did think you were more powerful than you are. Have you felt itchy, as of late? As though something small, unseen, were crawling all over you? Little legs, scurrying over your skin?” She half-chanted the words, low and rhythmic, reinforcing the spell with her intentions.

Lydia’s hand flew to her neck, diverting the touch to casually adjust her collar. But after a moment it was back, rubbing, then scratching along her skin, red welts starting to raise under the ministrations. “No…”

Zelda smiled, even as Lydia tried to gather enough focus to cast in return. She crossed the room, dragging the woman’s chair out from behind the desk, intent on getting what she had really come for. “I’d have thought everyone knew by now. No one hurts my sister but me.” 

The next morning when Hilda left their bedroom, there was a new shoe on a little shelf in the hallway. A low-heeled oxford, with a nameplate under it reading Lydia Abernathy.


End file.
